Automated Publishing

Coletta Perry

The Key to Shifting Your Content Velocity into Overdrive

You’re probably battling the effects of content velocity and you don’t even realize it! If you’re not familiar with that term, “content velocity” refers to the drive to create and deliver more content, in more ways, across more channels… in the same amount of time.

Sound familiar? Designers and publishers today are caught up in an accelerated world, where there just aren’t enough hours in a day—and we have to do more, in even less time, and often with the same number of, or even fewer, human resources.

So what can we do about it? Simply put, we need to find easier, more efficient ways to do our work.

“Easier and more efficient” can mean a lot of different things, depending on what type of work you do, how much of it you do, and how many people are involved in what you do. Far too much of what we do is largely repetitive, which is good because repetitive tasks can be automated.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that automation needs to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Many of us in the automation business tend to suffer from this disease. Even a little bit of automation in a larger process can have a huge impact. It’s better to start small than to not start at all.

In this article, I’m going to explore several ways that you can automate your publishing—from database publishing to automated editorial workflows. I’m going to assume that you have already gone as far as you can with native InDesign functions, productivity plug-ins, and all the advice you’ve garnered from InDesignSecrets over the years, and still need to do more.

There’s a lot to cover, so I’m going to break this down into three major sections: an introduction to automation, an overview of over a dozen plug-ins and services you should know about, and finally some advice for when you’re considering implementing an automated workflow.

This article is for members only. To continue reading, please sign in, or sign up for a membership today. Thanks for supporting CreativePro!